


and i am a damaged man

by awwcoffeenooooo



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pining, which seems to work into every one of my kastle fics, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 06:27:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15261405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awwcoffeenooooo/pseuds/awwcoffeenooooo
Summary: Her gun is laying three bullets lighter about three feet from his knee, and her handbag is a couple yards from that, and next to that there’s the devil himself, watching all of this with what Frank hopes is a stupefied look, because wouldn’t that be perfect? The devil watching an angel try to save a broken man, bleeding out breath on a filthy slab of pavement.





	and i am a damaged man

**Author's Note:**

> so way back in January I 'hosted' this thing called Pick-a-Fic, where people voted for fifteen-ish fics they wanted to see from me. 
> 
> here we are, seven odd months later, with the first place winner. thank you guys for your patience!
> 
> title is from Palaye Royale's 'White'
> 
> I hope you enjoy

“Karen?”

 

She doesn’t look up at the sound, instead choosing to run her arm across her red nose. Frank doesn’t think it helps much -- the movement instead only serves to smear his blood across her pretty cheekbones. But she’s still Karen, still a goddamned angel with her golden haired halo framing them and their little world, her fingers trying to hold the life pouring out of his chest. 

 

He can’t tell if it’s a fatal shot. Somehow, the entirety of his body south of his lower rib cage went numb the second Miss Karen Page dropped her handgun and laid her dolled up fingers on his chest. He also doesn’t know if that’s a good thing. But what he does know is that her fingers are getting soiled and the periwinkle polish he’d watched her apply not four hours ago is getting tarnished and that can’t be a good thing. She only existed in his world as an angel, strong and perfect and absolutely terrifying. 

 

But somehow, it’s at this moment that she’s never looked more human. 

 

Her gun is laying three bullets lighter about three feet from his knee, and her handbag is a couple yards from that, and next to that there’s the devil himself, watching all of this with what Frank hopes is a stupefied look, because wouldn’t that be perfect? The devil watching an angel try to save a broken man, bleeding out breath on a filthy slab of pavement. 

 

But the irony seems to be lost on a blind man, and it’s not too long before bloodied horns are blocking out the floodlight overhead. Karen’s halo disappears, and Frank finds that fitting. 

 

“Karen --”

 

It’s a single word, two syllables, and even numb as he is, Frank can hear the condescending tone. Karen herself isn’t so deaf, either. 

 

“Fuck off, Matt,” she spits, venom in her tone, and he thinks she looks absolutely feral in that moment. Blood across her cheeks, run through with tears, fire in her eyes, devotion in her fingertips. That’s her. He thinks he loves her for it. 

 

There’s a sigh, a slight shifting of light, and Frank drags in another breath. The devil’s hand lands on Karen’s shoulder. “Karen, please. I can hear the sirens,”

 

She almost growls with the force that she shoves him away with. “I said fuck off. I’m not leaving him,”

 

The hesitation is so thick Frank can smell it. But then his entire posture slips, and he knows the man has to give in. He cares too much; he’s been siren called by the angel, too. 

 

“I can get him to Claire,” he says, voice tight in a way that makes Frank wonder if he ever takes the stick out of his ass. “She should be able to save him, but I’m not sure. All I know is that it’s better than what we can do here, alone,”

 

The sirens are beginning to near enough for Frank to hear them, their shrill whines piercing the thick air of the city. Karen’s hands remain steady, but he thinks he hears her sniff. 

 

“Shh, it’s alright,” he manages, somehow keeping her big blue eyes on his. “It’s alright. You’ve done what you could, ma’am. Thank you,”

 

Her lower lip wobbles, but she’s a strong one, Miss Page. She bites it and it blooms cherry red, not quite broken but something near it. Her eyes are still seeking his, still looking for that sincerity he’s never been able to deny her. And he gives it to her -- the honest goddamned truth, his heart on a silver platter. He doesn’t know that he’ll be okay, doesn’t know that if he lets Red take him that he’ll see her again. But he might, and that might seems like good a reason as any to give in. 

 

“Okay,” she manages, nodding. Her hands are still holding his side, still trying to breathe life back into his broken body, and the fire in her eyes seems to promise she could. But she can’t tonight, because she’s no more than him under the pale silver moonlight. Human, flawed, and somehow still beautiful enough to shake the air from his bruised lungs. 

 

He manages one last squeeze of her hand before his eyes fall shut. 

 

* * *

 

He thinks she has to be a cliche. 

 

Or maybe he’s just so beaten and broken from so long behind the barrel of a gun he can’t help but think of her in the most extremes. He thinks of her like the recoil of a pistol, in only the most strict and sensible and powerful ways. 

 

Because she is all of those. She’s something like an angel but also something like a demon -- something beautiful and hauntingly strong. There’s blood crammed under pretty dolled up nails, and she doesn’t try to hide it. 

 

Her eyes hold stories like a war veteran, and her lips only let out truths. Her smile is as bitter as her taste in liquor, and that’s something ironic because he swears he could get drunk just off the scent of her skin. She’s a goddamned vision, but he knows -- so well -- that she’s not another pretty face. 

 

He thinks she once liked clutches, something small and innocent and sweet to carry around only what she needed. But needs change. Some people hide bodies, some people hide guns. Some hide both, and her big blue eyes only confirm it as she tells the tale of a man and a warehouse and an ill-placed pistol. 

 

She’s not innocent, not even in the most base sense of the world. She’s guilty of blood, same as he, even if her one doesn’t stack up to his dozens. But really, when it’s murder, who’s keeping count? A life’s a life, no matter how twisted. 

 

They’re a mess, he knows. Somewhere in between the battlefield and the press they’d come together as a unit, as a team, as some sort of relationship that neither can quite define. Romantic? No. Friendly? Not quite -- or at least that was a milestone marker far past. 

 

Maybe somewhere in the chaos he lost whatever experience he had with Maria. Maybe somewhere in there he forgot how to read interested eyes and too long gazes and halting touches. Or maybe he’s crazed, somewhere far past the simplicity of dates and courting and boyfriend/girlfriend melodrama. 

 

But they way they look and touch and speak can’t be platonic. Somehow, deep in his gut, he knows they were fated from the start. Or, at the very least, he was. Up against her, he never stood a chance. 

 

Perhaps he’s become a hopeless romantic, stuck between the depth of her eyes and the steadfastness of her heart. Perhaps it happened in the months where he tried to blend into a world that didn’t accept his shade of gray, the months whose nights he filled with pages and scripts for company. If so, he doesn’t quite seem to care. 

 

He’d gladly care for her to the end of his days. Perhaps it’s extreme to think those days will add to something more than a year. But he can’t find it to care. Any minute is more than he deserves. 

 

* * *

 

There’s the slight sting of an IV in his wrist when the light beckons him to breathe again. His finger feel thick and clumsy as he rips the thing out, stemming the dot of blooming blood with a swipe against the sheet that lays atop his chest. There’s the feeling of being repeatedly hit with a jackhammer in his ribcage, and stutteringly he draws in a deep breath. 

 

He hacks it up moments later. 

 

By the time his coughing fit ceases, Murdock’s before him, holding out a glass like a peace offering. Frank takes it and throws it back like a thirst ridden man, which he supposes he is. The stray droplets beading on cracked lips and down his chin feels like a prayer. 

 

He tries to pass the empty glass back to Murdock, but even that movement seems to be enough to send screams of pain up his spine. A hoarse gasp escapes him, and Frank falls back to the pillow behind him.

 

“Careful there,” the other man says. “Claire was able to patch you up, but only just.”

 

Something in his voice tells that he’d rather have preferred the other option. But nonetheless, he can spot his assault rifle propped up in the corner next to his vest, and there’s still rusted blood in the edges of his hands and the creases of his stomach. 

 

But there’s a certain someone missing, and even as he looks at Murdock’s pitifully sad face, Frank knows he has to ask. 

 

“Karen,” he swallows tightly, mouth still feeling like sawdust. “Where’s Karen?”

 

The devil’s lips purse as if he’s tasted something especially bitter. 

 

Frank supposes that’s fair. He wasn’t supposed to be the one who was able to see her smile every week, to know her coffee order by the weather, the songs she hums under her breath. That was supposed to be him -- Matt Murdock, the golden boy. The guy who should have been able to win over Karen Page’s shielded heart. 

 

It’s not that Frank’s succeeded. Not that’s he’s tried. But she’s got him all wrapped up around her little finger without even trying, and somewhere in there he’s found happiness. Happy with the way she laughs, the words that leave her lips, and the little touches she’s always apt to afford him. 

 

_ (Happy is just a kick in the balls waiting to happen.) _

 

He blinks, looks back up at the devil, and waits. 

 

“She’s at home. Safe,”

 

“And?”

 

It’s not enough. It never is, but this time -- he has to know. Her hand cannon, always ready, always hidden. Never used. Never fired. 

 

And never to take three lives at once. 

 

He sucks in a breath, thinking of her guilt over Fisk’s asshole goon. Thinking of the night the wine loosened her tongue and she let loose the story of a woman trapped in an impossible place with lucky odds, of a pistol fired --

He has to get to her. The guilt on her shoulders shouldn’t be beared alone. 

 

The man is still, but his lips betray him, spreading into a slow disbelieving smile. Frank pushes down the fire of his ribs and pulls himself to sitting. 

 

“Well?”

 

A chuckle echoes from across the distance between them, and he looks to see Murdock shaking his head. He mutters something to himself, and Frank tries not to yell at him to speak up. "Your heart rate, when you say her name," he responds to the silent question, teeth clenching. "Speeds up, Frank,"

 

Logically, a part of him should have seen it coming. 

 

But the other part of him -- the part that screams to deny the way he’s fallen head first for the tough as nails journalist, the woman with the gun -- freezes. 

 

Because he wasn’t supposed to know. No one was supposed to know. And he feels like a goddamned schoolboy caught with a first crush, too impish to say anything but suddenly caught with the overwhelming urge to bolt. 

 

Murdock reads him like a book. But he’s only reading the cover and notes, and never the actual story. Never the part where her smile is aimed at him, where she’s holding him tight, where she’s begging him to come back to her. 

 

Frank clears his throat, rips off the sheet that’s smeared with his blood both black and red. 

 

“I have to go,” he mutters, because really there’s nothing much else to say. Murdock knows, Murdock is going to warn him off Karen. He’s seen this dance all played out, and there’s nothing more to say. 

 

When his feet meet the floor, there’s an ache in his foot that he ignores much like the slow oozing he feels from the stitched up holes in his chest. It’ll stop with time. It’s the least of his worries. 

 

“Frank--”

 

If it was the beginning of a long monologue, or just a hollow use of his name, Frank will never know. Because it’s at that moment that there’s a pounding at the apartment door, and Murdock lets out a disgruntled sigh. 

 

“You gonna get that?” Frank growls when he doesn’t move, and takes pleasure in the way the devil’s jaw clenches.

 

“That depends,” he mutters in return. “How much blood is on me?”

 

Frank shrugs, chews the inside of his cheek. “Not enough to arouse suspicion,”

 

He’s saved from another disappointed look by another round of banging, this time accompanied by thinly veiled threats. Frank doesn't have to strain to pick up their conversation from the doorway. 

 

“Karen you can’t --”

 

“Like hell  _ I can’t _ , Matt,” 

 

And it’s her, blowing around the corner and pushing past one supposedly reasonable Matt Murdock. Her hair doesn’t look like it’s seen a brush since last week and there’s the tiniest of asphalt cherries just left of her chin, but it’s Karen. It’s still her red rimmed eyes that he wishes he wasn’t so accustomed to seeing. Still her relieved smile when she sees him, whole and more or less alive. 

 

She all but tackles him, cradling his head like he did oh-so long ago in a kitchen, in an apartment, keeping him as safe from her enthusiasm as he had from his world.  _ Their _ world. 

 

His chest screams, and he ignores it for the feeling of her heartbeat against his collarbone.  _ I thought I lost you _ s and  _ I’m so sorry _ s echo against his neck, and it only makes him cradle her closer. 

 

Her hair smells sweet like her shampoo, still slightly damp from a wash. Lavender, and it smells like home. 

 

Fuck the fact she’s not his, that the devil is watching them right now. That he almost bled out under her pretty hands last night. He loves her. Something like Maria, but also something new. And he thinks -- not for the first time -- that he’s okay with that. 

 

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, you hear me?” he whispers, voice harsh with conviction but softened for her. Just for her -- only her. “Not for me, not for those assholes. You’re a goddamn angel, Karen Page,”

 

She sniffs, holds him tighter, and while his ribs scream out -- not for the first time -- he buries himself further in her hold. “Angel with a handgun,” she manages, half laughing, half crying, or something damn near it, and he wetly chuckles with her. 

 

Their comfort is broken by the clearing of a throat, and he momentarily holds her tighter before gently pushing her back. Her blue eyes are teary, and he’s gone and stained another of her blouses with his blood, but she tucks a strand of her frizzled hair behind her ear and smiles sadly. 

It lasts all of a moment, and then she’s turning with fury to the owner of the apartment. 

 

A smack rings out, and for a moment Frank has to blink before his mind registers. 

 

“Don’t you dare do that again,” she hisses out from clenched teeth, hand still raised from where she’d smacked the devil clear across the face. “If he’s hurt, I want to know. If he’s going to live, I want to know,”

 

She bites her lip, and then she’s hugging him, too. Frank sees the way his posture stiffens for a moment before he tentatively hugs her back. “And I always want to know you’re okay, too,” 

 

“Both of you goddamn vigilante idiots,”

 

* * *

 

He knows for a fact Karen Page isn’t one to stick around when she’s not needed. She has a sixth sense for that; she stays true whether you know you need her or not, and she’s gone in the next. 

 

But something tells him her hurry to leave is less to do with her practicality and more to do with who’s apartment they’re currently in. 

 

She disassembles his rifle with an ease that has Murdock uncomfortable and shifting from foot to foot. She packs it with his vest in his duffle, which she’d apparently grabbed out of his apartment, along with a loose hoodie and track pants. 

 

“Karen,” Murdock starts, just as they’re about to leave. 

 

She turns, eyes hard, lips pursed. “Yeah, Matt?”

 

He swallows, and Frank knows if the man could see he’d be looking between the two of them. Except he can’t, and his fingers twitch at his inability to talk down Frank Castle and Karen Page.

 

He thinks they make a good pair. A man with a death wish, and a woman stubborn enough to keep him from falling off that ledge. 

 

The devil nods, resigned, after what feels like hours. “Please be careful,”

 

“I will if I need to be,” she responds, taking Frank’s arm and stepping out the door. 

 

He doesn’t see her look back, not once in the longer than usual time it takes them to reach the elevator, Frank limping at her side. 

 

* * *

 

The light is just beginning to bloom in full as they make it up to Karen’s apartment. People are beginning to stir and go about their lives, and no one seems to notice a broken man and a woman with a duffle heading inside. 

 

He’s positive he popped at least a stitch on the way up her stairs. There’s small droplets of blood forming on the front of his sweatshirt, bleeding through, but Karen promises there’s patches in her kit if he can at least make it that far. 

 

He’ll do whatever she says, and doesn’t fully understand why she would ever think otherwise. She’s an angel and he’s a man, and he’d be foolish to not walk through hell for her. 

 

When they finally stumble inside, Karen doesn’t hesitate to needlessly point him toward the bedroom. He leans against the wall, clutches his bullet holes, and once more pushes to do as she’s asked. 

 

“Shirt off,” she tells him, pulling on a pair of gloves and watching as he swallows down some pain pills. “Claire told me a bit of what to do, but . . . “ she shrugs, cheeks flushed, and he grabs her wrist gently. 

 

“Hey, I trust you,” he holds her gaze for a long moment, and when she nods he lays back. 

 

This isn’t a new dance. He’s stained her sheets so many times with his life that it’s a wonder she still has them. But it’s never been this bad. He’s never been this pale, his hands haven’t ever shaken like this, it hasn’t ever been this much of a struggle to pull off his jacket. 

 

The lower of the two entry wounds has opened, weeping sluggishly. Karen pulls out the useless stitching and threads her needle, hands firm and orderly against the determined fear in her eyes. She’s a tough woman, and he can’t help resting his eyes. 

 

He’s startled some time later, when she’s fastening a large patch of ointment soaked gauze over the wounds. She shoots him a small smile before beginning to gather her tools, and drops a light kiss on his hairline as she peels off her gloves. 

 

It’s quiet. Somehow it always is when they aren’t discussing life and death and trafficking and corruption. It’s an easy silence, full of things that he leaves unsaid and maybe the same things that she doesn’t know how to broach. The affection isn’t new, either. Somehow, none of this is. 

 

They’re still playing on these thin lines that aren’t concrete, still pushing and warping to see how far they can get. But the thing is -- all of these boundaries are eclipsed by one thing. And that’s that not six hours ago she put three bullets in three men and held her hands to the holes in his body and begged him not to leave her. 

 

And maybe there’s more than a little wrong with that -- that she’s been around him so long his darkness rubbed on her gray, that her one turned into four, that her pistol had to unload and not in self-defence, but for  _ him _ . 

 

One, two, three. 

 

She wasn’t supposed to be there. 

 

Perhaps he wasn’t supposed to be here. 

 

Maybe he was destined to bleed out there, to go home to little Frankie and Lisa, to Maria. But one Karen Page said otherwise, angel she was, staving off God’s will. 

 

Instead he was here, smelling her sweet scent like a freak, listening to the water run down the hall, washing his blood down the drain from that pretty nail polish of hers. 

 

He inhales, lets go. 

 

Listens as she calls in sick to Ellison, spouts off some bullshit about ladies’ problems, as she makes a remark in turn to the editor’s disbelief. 

 

She’s too good for him. Always was, always will be. He’s forever in her debt, wrapped so tightly around her little finger that he doesn’t even bother trying to untangle himself. 

 

Karen pulls the curtains shut when she returns, casting the morning’s growing brightness into a dusky haze. 

 

He listens, closes his eyes as she crawls up on the bed beside him, scooted all of the way to the side. Her hair gets pulled up and tossed over the top of the pillow, out of her way. He listens to the steadiness of her chest rising and falling. 

 

Her fingers are cool when they slide over his, meeting in the valley between them. He doesn’t have to look to see it -- her fair and clean skin against his split and calloused. But his fingers curl up around hers, his thumb strokes a rhythm against her bones, and a breath escapes her lips. 

 

“I thought I lost you,” she breathes out, voice low. “Matt wouldn’t pick up, and neither would you or Claire, and I thought --” Her voice breaks for a split second. “I thought you were gone,”

 

He doesn’t know what to say, and so he doesn’t say anything. But his grip tightens in the slightest way, and she releases a calming breath. 

 

“I can’t lose you, Frank,” she whispers. “I know you have a mission, and I never want to get in the way of that, but you can’t just do this. You don’t get to act like people don’t give a shit when I --”

 

She catches herself in a rush, almost gasping as she halts her tongue. “ . . . when I care.”

 

He doesn’t know how to respond. Then, he never does. Karen Page, always knocking him speechless. So beautiful and strong and goddamn terrifying. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice hoarse. Her meds are kicking in, and he can feel himself going down fast. 

 

And yet, those two words let her know that he’s not done with this conversation. He’s not done listening, understanding. But there will be time later. Time when he hasn’t lost pints of blood and she has slept in the past twenty-fours. 

 

For now, he squeezes her hand. 

 

Three for each bullet she fired. 

 

Three for each word he can’t bring himself to say. 

**Author's Note:**

> it's nearly midnight and i'm on a caffeine crash, so I hope my last minute readover didn't miss too much. that being said, I hope you enjoyed this, and it'd make a girl quite happy if you wouldn't mind taking a moment to drop a review. 
> 
> thank you for reading :)
> 
> tumblr -- awwcoffeenooooo


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